Monday, October 22, 2012

Sander Street: A Father's Classic Gift

Dad takes a picture of me on a sick day from schoolreading.

A more modern Amazon set ofChildren's Classics

Sometimes during those long nights on Sander Street, waiting for Dad’s heavy
footsteps on the wooden porch, We'd get a
surprise. He might come through the door carrying a big sack of White Castle hamburgers. Maybe Empress Chili. One night it was Chinese in those little white cartons with the wire handles.

But one particular middle-of-the-night, he really gave me a surprise.

With an eighth grade education, my father had a secret
fondness for reading and education. Grandma and I may have been the only ones who
knew it.

Dad harped on me all through school for one reason or
another. First it was my handwriting in
the second grade. He called it “chicken
scratching.” Indeed, he had beautiful
penmanship on his side. Next, it was
reading, and had it not been for his pushing me I might not have become a
book junkie.

To reinforce the reading wish he had for me, one night he
came in a little earlier carrying a brown rectangular box, which I spied
through my half-closed eyelids from the rollaway bed. He went to the living room first to talk to
my mother, which was usual. I wondered
if he’d brought her a present, if that’s what was in the brown cardboard
box.

Then I heard Mom say, “Wait until morning.” With that, he turned and huffed into the
bedroom, still carrying the box, then stopped, and knelt by the side of the
rollaway bed. I opened my eyes before
he could say my name. Excitement danced in his eyes. He lifted the box onto the bed next to me and
said, “Look, I got you something.”

I sat up and pulled back the already opened flaps on the box
top and saw eight hardback book spines in a neat row, all in different
colors.

Dad loved giving gifts. He always gave them immediately, as soon as he got them. He couldn't wait.

He pulled one of the books out
of the box and proudly announced, “Look, this is Heidi. This is a set of
children’s classics.” He handed the
Heidi book to me.

I remember touching the book gently, running my fingers over
the bookcloth, reading the imprinted title and author’s name, Johanna
Spyri. I’d already read the library’s
copy of Heidi, and Dad must have noticed me sitting on the bottom step of the
old staircase reading when no one was around.

He pulled the rest of the books out of the box, Treasure Island, Five Little Peppers,
Alice in Wonderland, Little Women, Little Men, Tom Sawyer, and Huckleberry Finn, and-one-by-one placed them in a pile on the crumpled covers. I was spellbound. I was shocked. I didn’t know what to say.

We were not a demonstrative family, especially when it came to outward shows of affection. I must have thanked him, though. I don't remember.

I stayed mad at my father so much for drinking and driving
Mom crazy, and here he goes and does something so amazing.

All Mom said was something to the effect of, "He should've waited for your birthday."

The next morning, or when it was time to go to school, I
lugged that big heavy box of books the two blocks to St. George to show my
prize off to everyone. I was so proud of my father that day. I wanted the nuns and other kids to see what a good father, what a smart father, I had. He bought me BOOKS!

I had to hide those books of course, up high, in a closet,
so the little kids wouldn’t get them and tear them up. I wish I still had them, but teenage years
soon came around, and they were put up in an attic somewhere, at one of our
houses, and I never saw them again.

But the memory of that night is still with me, as well as
another night a few years later, when Dad surprised me again. But that’s another story of the years in Mt.
Auburn.

When I showed my books to Grandma, tears shone in her
eyes. My father couldn’t afford books
when he was young. Grandma said my
father was always a reader and loved books.
He wanted me to have something he wished he could have had.

The gift of those books, when it wasn’t Christmas, or my
birthday, or anything, changed me in several ways. I learned to treasure books more than I probably would have otherwise. And I felt different about my father. I would continue getting angry at him, but it was like I learned something about him I hadn't known before.

The book junkie's wall of books today. My husband Gary and youngest son Jeff are also book junkies.